Airbags/Transcript
Transcript Text reads: The Mysteries of Life with Tim & Moby MOBY: Beep. A boy, Tim, and a robot, Moby, are at an amusement park. Music is playing. They watch two bumper cars collide with each other. Moby hands Tim a piece of paper. Tim reads from the typed letter. TIM: Dear Tim and Moby, how does an airbag work? From, Karina. MOBY: Beep. TIM: Well, bumper cars don't have airbags because they're small and don’t go very fast. When they hit something, the bumps aren't all that forceful. Two bumper cars hit each other head-on. They bounce back slightly. TIM: But real cars are a lot bigger and faster, so when they hit something... An animation shows two automobiles hitting each other head-on. The front ends of both cars crumple, and the scene becomes filled with smoke. MOBY: Beep. TIM: Right. That's where airbags come in. Newton's laws of physics say that an object in motion tends to stay in motion. An animation shows Sir Isaac Newton with objects flying past him, illustrating the concept Tim describes. TIM: That's why if a car stops suddenly, your body continues moving forward. An image shows Tim on the passenger side of a rapidly moving car. He is wearing a seatbelt and shoulder harness. As the car screeches to a halt, Tim's body jerks forward and is pulled back by the shoulder harness. TIM: Seat belts are there to restrain you, but they don't make that forward jerk any less traumatic. The bag is there to absorb the force of your body being thrown forward. Plus, it puts up a barrier between you and the windshield. Two animations show cars stopping suddenly. The first car has no airbag, and the driver's face hits the steering wheel. The second car has an airbag, and it stops the forward motion of the driver. Moby blows up a toy balloon until it pops. MOBY: Beep. TIM: Yeah, airbags are a lot stronger than balloons. They're usually made of nylon, an artificial fabric that's super strong, but soft. Each airbag is attached to a canister filled with compressed gas. An image shows a deflated airbag stored in a dashboard, next to an air canister. TIM: When a car crashes, the gas instantly fills the bag, making it burst out of its compartment. The airbag fills and pops out from the dashboard. TIM: But the bags don't stay blown up. In fact, they begin deflating almost immediately, so they're soft when you hit them. An image shows a man with his face pressing into a steering wheel's inflated airbag. MOBY: Beep. TIM: These days, all cars in the U.S. are sold with at least two airbags. The driver's airbag is stored in the steering wheel, and the passenger's is stored in the dashboard. An image shows the interior of a car. Arrows point to the steering wheel and to the driver's side dashboard. TIM: And many cars also have side airbags, because not all crashes happen head-on. An image shows the interior of a car with activated side airbags. TIM: Impact sensors are located all over a car's body. Different airbags inflate depending on which sensors get hit. Only dangerous impacts are strong enough to trigger them. When those happen, airbags inflate in a fraction of a second. Images illustrate the locations of impact sensors in a car, along with the degree of impact it takes to activate a sensor. Images show front and side airbags activating. TIM: Front airbags shoot out with enough force to hurt small kids. So if you're too small, you should probably sit in the back seat. It's a lot safer there, anyway. An image shows a young girl in the back seat of a car. She is wearing her seatbelt and shoulder harness. TIM: Oh, and having an airbag doesn't mean it's time to say goodbye to your seatbelt. Airbags are built to work with seatbelts. An animation shows a seatbelt being fastened. Moby pounds his fist on the dashboard on Tim's side of the car. The airbag inflates into Tim's face, then deflates a bit. TIM: I wish you hadn't done that. MOBY: Beep. Category:BrainPOP Transcripts Category:BrainPOP Engineering & Technology Transcripts